When a person sustains an injury from playing sports, an accident or any other reason, he or she may need to undergo physical therapy to restore normal movement to the body. Part of this approach involves the use of therapeutic exercise to help the patient regain balance, strength, flexibility, and range of motion and alleviate pain.
The physical therapist will evaluate the patient's condition by conducting an assessment of his or her ability to move, and taking a medical history. This information will be used to formulate a specific course of exercises which become progressively more challenging as the patient improves. Once the pain is overcome, the focus will be on restoring the body's strength, endurance, and flexibility.
A combination of different exercises are implemented in a physical therapy program, these are classified by the nature of the movement and how it affects the body. With passive exercise, the muscles don't have to do any work, manual or mechanical force is applied externally, which helps restore normal movement to the joints. Whereas with active exercises, the cooperation of the muscles is needed, either alone or with assistance, this not only improves motion of joints, but also strengthens neuromuscular control.
Other activities are prescribed to help patients regain strength and endurance in the muscles which have been injured. This is normally added to the program once the patient can safely perform basic flexibility and range-of-motion movements without help. Progressive resistance is added to the routine at a steady rate to gradually build back lost strength in the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones, which is the body's natural response.
Exercises for regaining strength are generally grouped as either static or dynamic. The former are those which do not involve joint movement, with the length of the muscle fibers remaining the same since the resistance and tension are equal, rather it is the angle they are performed at which makes the difference and helps the patient increase strength, so using varied angles in practice and holding each movement for several seconds is recommended.
Dynamic exercises require muscle and joint involvement and can be sub-grouped as isotonic, isokinetic, variable-resistance, and manual movements. What each of these has is common is that it results in concentric and eccentric muscle action, which is the lengthening and shortening of fibers, generating force. This repetitive stretching of muscle-tendon bundles eventually boosts tensile strength.
Isotonic movements are those which lengthen the muscle by means of an externally applied force that imposes a change on the angle of the joint. Examples include the use of free weights, ankle weights, and weight machines. Variable-resistance exercises involve limited force production by the muscles when the joints are in extreme positions of range-of-motion. There are machines to apply resistance relative to force with proper joint alignment. Manual resistance is similar except that it is performed with the therapist's assistance rather than a machine.
With isokinetic exercises, the resistance and muscle force are equal, and they are performed with a fixed speed. Specially designed fitness machines provide a level of force commensurate with the user's muscle resistance, and the balance of concentric/eccentric action and velocity can normally be adjusted as well.
The physical therapist will evaluate the patient's condition by conducting an assessment of his or her ability to move, and taking a medical history. This information will be used to formulate a specific course of exercises which become progressively more challenging as the patient improves. Once the pain is overcome, the focus will be on restoring the body's strength, endurance, and flexibility.
A combination of different exercises are implemented in a physical therapy program, these are classified by the nature of the movement and how it affects the body. With passive exercise, the muscles don't have to do any work, manual or mechanical force is applied externally, which helps restore normal movement to the joints. Whereas with active exercises, the cooperation of the muscles is needed, either alone or with assistance, this not only improves motion of joints, but also strengthens neuromuscular control.
Other activities are prescribed to help patients regain strength and endurance in the muscles which have been injured. This is normally added to the program once the patient can safely perform basic flexibility and range-of-motion movements without help. Progressive resistance is added to the routine at a steady rate to gradually build back lost strength in the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones, which is the body's natural response.
Exercises for regaining strength are generally grouped as either static or dynamic. The former are those which do not involve joint movement, with the length of the muscle fibers remaining the same since the resistance and tension are equal, rather it is the angle they are performed at which makes the difference and helps the patient increase strength, so using varied angles in practice and holding each movement for several seconds is recommended.
Dynamic exercises require muscle and joint involvement and can be sub-grouped as isotonic, isokinetic, variable-resistance, and manual movements. What each of these has is common is that it results in concentric and eccentric muscle action, which is the lengthening and shortening of fibers, generating force. This repetitive stretching of muscle-tendon bundles eventually boosts tensile strength.
Isotonic movements are those which lengthen the muscle by means of an externally applied force that imposes a change on the angle of the joint. Examples include the use of free weights, ankle weights, and weight machines. Variable-resistance exercises involve limited force production by the muscles when the joints are in extreme positions of range-of-motion. There are machines to apply resistance relative to force with proper joint alignment. Manual resistance is similar except that it is performed with the therapist's assistance rather than a machine.
With isokinetic exercises, the resistance and muscle force are equal, and they are performed with a fixed speed. Specially designed fitness machines provide a level of force commensurate with the user's muscle resistance, and the balance of concentric/eccentric action and velocity can normally be adjusted as well.
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